2. My paternal grandparents, when they were alive, used to live in Miami. I remember once (in the late 1950s—early 1960)someone my mother obtaining some embroidered alligator emblems which were then sewn onto shirts for my grandfather, my father, my little brother and myself to wear for a photo. At the time it was all about Florida and the alligators, but looking back I now realize it also had branding implications…

Jean René Lacoste… was a French tennis player and businessman. He was nicknamed “the Crocodile” by fans because of his tenacity on the court; he is also known worldwide as the namesake of the Lacoste tennis shirt, which he introduced in 1929.

“There are two major classes of snobs I think. One class includes people that take little alligator labels and sew them onto their shirts. These snobs get the alligator labels from the second class of snobs — the people that buy genuine Lacoste shirts and promptly remove the alligator labels.”

3. But “crocodile” and “alligator” are not synonymous. The Lacoste logo is evidently a crocodile—not an alligator. In Florida, however, there are alligators. I remember seeing shelves full of taxidermied baby alligators (like the one on the right) in the souvenir shops of various tourist attractions when I was a kid.